As some of you may have guessed, I was on vacation for awhile, which is why my activity on this site was near zero (and why there was no radio last week).

This was something I planned in late May, which was actually a challenge because hotels were already booked in certain popular locations, and airline seats were tough to come by (for what I needed).

I will post more details on it shortly. It was a family vacation, and Benjamin actually did surprisingly well.

We were in the following places:

Glacier National Park (northwest Montana)
Waterton National Park (Alberta, Canada)
Lewis & Clark Caverns (southwest Montana)
Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming)
Mount Rushmore (South Dakota)
Custer State Park (South Dakota)
Badlands National Park (South Dakota)
Garden of the Gods (Colorado Springs)
Pike's Peak (Colorado Springs)

This was actually a lot to do in 10 days. We flew into Kalispell, Montana (next to Glacier), then drove the rest of the way, finally ending up in Denver and flying home.

Getting a reasonably-priced one-way car rental for that distance was a challenge (especially originating from a small place like Kalispell), as was getting a reasonably-priced one-way flight to Kalispell with about 7 weeks notice.

I felt Glacier National Park had the best mountain scenery I had ever seen in the United States. Waterton was similar and also very nice, but you didn't rise to breathtaking heights like in Glacier. Yellowstone should be seen at least once in your lifetime (this was my 3rd time there). Mount Rushmore was interesting and respectfully presented, but the ultra-touristy surrounding area (and I'm talking about 30 miles each direction) was very off-putting. If you are in the Denver (actually Colorado Springs) area, you should really drive up to Pike's Peak. The road has been paved since late 2011, and it's a really interesting and scenic trek up there. Just make sure it's not cloudy.

Denver Airport sucks. Give yourself a ton of time or you will miss your flight. Usually I cut it close and barely make my flights, but at Denver we arrived about 80 minutes before the flight and thought we had plenty of time. Wrong. We actually had to run at the end and literally were the last passengers aboard as they closed the door.